Three meters, seized in 1916... What is this talking drum that France should return to the Ivory Coast?

The talking drum Djidji Ayôkwé is preparing to return to Côte d'Ivoire, more than a century after being stolen by France. A vote this Monday in the National Assembly should allow this return, six years after Abidjan's official request. The return of this iconic drum fulfills a commitment made by Emmanuel Macron in 2021.

Measuring three meters long and weighing 430 kg, this sacred instrument was used to transmit ritual messages and alert villagers, for example during forced recruitment or military enlistment operations. Seized in 1916 by the colonial authorities from the Ebrié ethnic group, it was sent to France in 1929, exhibited at the Trocadéro Museum and then at the Quai Branly Museum. Restored in 2022, it is now kept in a crate, awaiting its return.

The bill, which will be debated from 3 p.m. in the chamber and was already adopted in the Senate at the end of April, is intended to "downgrade" this cultural asset, by derogating from the principle of the inalienability of public collections.

Ivory Coast officially made its request in 2019. "But local communities have been asking for it since independence," says Serge Alain Nhiang'O, founder of the Ivoire Black History Month association in Abidjan. It is the first item on a list of 148 works that Ivory Coast has requested be returned to France, and its return "could become a very powerful symbol," he says.

On the French side, this return is seen as an act of gratitude. "The return of the drum will contribute to the reparation of an extortion committed during the colonial era, a testament to our awakening," asserts MP Bertrand Sorre (Renaissance), rapporteur of the text.

But this restitution also highlights the slow pace of the French process. To date, only 27 works have been officially returned to African countries since a law passed in December 2020, which allowed the return of the 26 treasures of Abomey to Benin and the El Hadj Omar sword to Senegal.

Considered a pioneer, France now appears to be "lagging behind" other Western countries, says anthropologist Saskia Cousin, a professor at the University of Nanterre, citing, for example, Germany, which has undertaken a real inventory of works in museums, unlike France, where "there is clearly a withholding of information."

Furthermore, repatriations are being carried out piecemeal, in the absence of a framework law promised by the head of state to facilitate these processes, which have become a "red herring," explains Saskia Cousin. It would make it possible to avoid a specific law for each restitution, a long and complex process, by derogating from the principle of inalienability of public collections by decree.

In 2023, France adopted two framework laws: one to return property looted during the Second World War to Jewish families, the other to regulate the return of human remains from public collections. But the third law, announced for objects looted during colonization, has still not seen the light of day.

In 2024, a text was submitted to the Council of State. In an opinion revealed by Le Monde , the court requested a new work, considering that restitution should obey a "higher general interest" similar to that identified with regard to property looted by the Nazis. According to Le Monde, the reason for restitution mentioned in the text was cultural cooperation with former colonies. This would not be sufficient in the eyes of the Council of State to justify an infringement of the inalienability of public collections.

For some, demanding a "higher general interest" would amount to turning the bill into a text of "repentance" for colonization, a debate the government seems keen to avoid. For Saskia Cousin, France "does not have a problem" with restitution, but a problem with "the way it thinks about its imperial past."

Pressed by members of the Cultural Affairs Committee on the future of this law, Culture Minister Rachida Dati affirmed last week that the text had indeed been reworked and that she hoped to present it to the Council of Ministers by the end of July. She hopes for a debate in Parliament before the end of the year, while also saying she wants to avoid it opening the "door to exploitation."